On Contextualization of the Estonian Child-Lore Collections

ISTORINIO KONTEKSTO ĮTAKA DAINŲ SKLAIDAI

The Dog Goes to Tend the Herd… On Contextualization of the Estonian Child-Lore Collections

LIINA SAARLO Estonian Folklore Archives, Estonian Literary Museum (Tartu)

ABSTRACT. The paper contextualizes the large and “thick” corpus of children’s songs at the Estonian Folklore Archives, presenting circumstances and prerequisites of its formation. The showcase is the child-lore corpus of Laiuse parish and Priidu Tammepuu, the key figure in its formation. The paper discusses the motives of an amateur folklore collector, conflicts between the contributor and the archival institution. Also, problems of collection by pupils are brought forward, revealing the reasons of marginalisation and dismission of some of the corpus’s content by folklorists, researchers and publishers. Finally, perspectives and possibilities for use of such archival materials are discussed.

KEYWORDS: Estonian Folklore Archives, folklore collection campaigns, child-lore, contributor, literary influences on oral traditions.

INTRODUCTION

In Estonia, folklore has been a cornerstone of the construction of the Estonian national identity, and thereby countrywide folklore collection campaigns played an important role in the national movement since the 1880s. In the 1920s and 1930s, after gaining the national independence and institutionalization of the folkloristics, the focus of fieldwork and studies of the Estonian folklore shifted from classical genres to the peripheries of oral tradition. Theretofore considered unattractive and trivial, some genres – like child-lore – found themselves as objects of massive collection campaigns. Professor Walter Anderson organized the collection of children songs all over Estonia with the help of the published questionnaire. The campaign succeeded because it was targeted at school teachers and pupils and – thanks to the precedent collection campaigns – the idea of documentation of oral folk traditions was commonly recognized. Anderson’s and his predecessors’ success inspired several

252 ISSN 1392-2831 Tautosakos darbai 59, 2020 L. Saarlo. THE DOG GOES TO TEND THE HERD… 253 local contributors – like a school teacher of Laiuse parish, Priidu Tammepuu – to continue the collection on their own, using the same methods and sometimes the same questionnaire. The child-lore collections of Anderson and his followers can be considered to be a thick corpus in many ways (see Honko 2000). Firstly, literally – the questionnaires were answered by whole grades and schools, the child-lore tradition was documented exhaustively. Secondly, pupils were instructed to follow the authenticity principles and add the contextual data about the origins of the documented songs. Nevertheless, the collections of Anderson and his followers were derogated and marginalized by Estonian folklorists. Firstly, because of implied triviality, as mentioned above. Secondly, because of supposed unauthenticity – the general assumption is that pupils fabulated and scribed from each other. The tasks of archivists, researchers and publishers of these collections are uncontestably complicated. However, application of the methods of digital and interdisciplinary humanities can give very interesting and fruitful results. In my paper, I will discuss the possibilities to contextualize Anderson’s and Tammepuu’s child-lore collections from Laiuse parish.

FOLKLORE COLLECTION IN ESTONIA: COUNTRYWIDE CAMPAIGNS

The documentation of the Estonian folklore, i.e. archaic oral traditions of peasantry1, has its long and prosperous history. Arisen from protestant need for local written languages and problems of religious education, and later following the Herderian ideas, Baltic-German intellectuals have been documenting peasants’ oral tradition since the 17th century (Valk 2007; Lukas 2011). Although Estonian folklore was considered as a part of Baltic-German identity, and collection, translation and publication of folklore texts was a significant component of intellectual activities, the documentation of folklore was an avocation of single literati and not an all- inclusive action. The increase of Estonian national clerisy and the idea of formation of the Estonian professional culture on the basis of oral traditional culture (e.g. Särg 2007) intensified interest in the oral tradition of peasants and prompted various societies as well as individuals to organize collection campaigns. As in many other Eastern-European countries, folklore collecting became an important part of the construction of the Estonian national identity in the 19th

1 Until the very end of the 19th century, the social classes and ethnic groups were (almost) clearly divided in Estonia: ethnic Estonians were peasantry – culturally, socially and economically marginalized class. Aristocracy and bourgeoisie were Baltic-Germans and Russians. On Estonian history see Kasekamp 2010. 254 TAUTOSAKOS DARBAI 59

century (e.g. Jansen 1994). The most active phase of folklore collecting was in the 1890s, when thousands of common people participated in the campaigns initiated by Jakob Hurt (1839–1907) and Matthias Johann Eisen (1857–1934)2. One of the reasons of the success of these actions was skilful PR-work by both organizers – clarion calls and public speeches as well as reports were published in countrywide newspapers, contributors were publicly acknowledged and instructed (Hroch 2000: 76–85; Jaago 2005; Kikas 2013; cf. Mikkola 2013: 146). The result of those campaigns – approx. 200,000 manuscript pages – formed the basis of Estonian folklore corpus, and later became the cornerstone of Estonian Folklore Archives. The success of the campaigns enthused several minor campaigns, both by professionals and amateurs, countrywide and locally. Oskar Kallas3 organized a countrywide collection of folk tunes with the help of students (Kuutma 2005b). But there were also local contributors or enthusiastic followers who organized collection with the help of friends, sometimes starting private archives (e.g. Kikas 2014: 319). With the founding of the Estonian Folklore Archives in 1927, all minor collections were supposed to be assigned to the central archives, because folklore- collections were seen as an important part of common knowledge, having scientific and national significance. Most of the Estonian folklore collections were handed over, donated or escrowed, but some collectors confronted conventions and the officials of the archives (e.g. Oras 2002; Kalkun 2012).

WALTER ANDERSON AND THE COLLECTION OF CHILDREN’S SONGS

Since folklore was seen as the testimony of the nation’s history and significance of its culture in the 19th century, socio-historical, mythological and aesthetical aspects of the classical genres like runo-songs, fairy-tales and legends were in the focus of Estonian folklore collections and studies till the 1920s. Marginal and “non-serious” genres and topics – like child-lore, urban-lore, obscenities, traditions of ethnic and social minorities, etc. – were considered as trivial, inappropriate or insignificant, and thereby ignored (cf. Bendix 1997; Bula 2008; Saarlo 2008). Because folklore

2 Jakob Hurt was a notable Estonian pastor, folklorist, and linguist. His lifelong work gave way to the institutionalisation of Estonian studies: the Estonian National Museum was founded in 1909 and the Estonian Folklore Archives in 1927 to preserve his folklore collection and to continue his work (see e.g. Jaago 2005). Matthias Johann Eisen was also a pastor and folklorist, he followed Hurt’s example in collection methods. Being a competitor to Hurt’s campaign, Eisen published a number of popular volumes on different folklore genres (see e.g. Kuutma 2005a). 3 Oskar Kallas (1868–1946) was an Estonian folklorist, later a diplomat. As a student, he was one of the first of Hurt’s stipendiaries. He defended his doctoral thesis in Helsinki University in 1901, becoming the first Estonian PhD in folkloristics. L. Saarlo. THE DOG GOES TO TEND THE HERD… 255 collection was a patriotic activity, it was self-evident that organizers of the collections had to be intellectuals, respected members of the society, and contributors had to be mature, responsible people. In the 1880s, Estonian society was democratic enough to accept contributions by farmhands, servants, or even women, but pupils felt the need to hide their adolescence or apologise for it (see Kikas 2014: 318–319). In the 1920s and 1930s, after gaining the national independence and institutionalization of folkloristics4, great changes occurred in Estonian folklore research and fieldwork conventions. Folklorists’ interest broadened from ethnocentric archaic traditions of peasantry to ethnic minorities, neighbouring peoples and contemporary folklore (e.g. Saarlo 2018b).

Walter Anderson (ELM, ERA, Foto 1610)

Walter Anderson (1885–1962) was the first professor of folklore at the University of Tartu, and an exemplary representative of the historic-geographic school (Seljamaa 2005). Alongside conceptional theoretical approaches on classical folklore genres (Anderson 1923, 1935), he was interested in contemporary folklore phenomena, marginalia and minorities, e.g. chain letters, graffiti, child-lore, etc. (Seljamaa 2008).

4 Estonia gained independence in 1918, the chair of Estonian and comparative folklore was founded at the Tartu University in 1919; Estonian Folklore Archives were founded in 1927 (see e.g. Valk 2007: 287–288). 256 TAUTOSAKOS DARBAI 59

Anderson initiated the collection of children songs all over Estonia with the help of the published questionnaire (Anderson 1922). His aim was – in accordance with the methodological basis of the historic-geographic school – to register all possible variants of the songs in Estonia (cf. Laugaste 1935: 439–440). The reason for the endeavour was the lack of child-lore in the older folklore collections (by Hurt and Eisen). Also, Anderson hoped to confirm his theories about the distribution and variation of folklore texts on the basis of “living tradition” (Saukas 2007: 38–51). The campaign succeeded because it was targeted at school teachers and pupils – questionnaires were sent to schools and teachers supervised the collection of songs. Pupils were instructed in detail how to write down the songs and which data to add. In the questionnaire was printed a list of songs that they could know. Anderson also engaged his students to give instructions on the collection process at schools and prepare child-lore collections as their proseminary papers. During those two decades, about 60,000 pages with approx. 200,000 songs were sent to Anderson from all over Estonia5. For example, eight portions of contributions were sent from schools of the Laiuse parish6. A total of 2407 songs, of which 400 represent the “older tradition” – lullabies, chain-songs, children’s amusement songs, etc. Anderson’s success inspired several local contributors to continue the collection on their own, using the same methods and sometimes the same questionnaire. Friedrich Eichenbaum (later Priidu Tammepuu) was one of the school teachers, who conducted the collection work. Lauri Honko has characterised the concept of “thick corpus” by outlining intensive collection work in one region, concentrating on one or more informants, focusing rather on thematic fields than particular genres, and importance of the contextual data (Honko 2005: 15–17). Also archived materials are distinguished by using concepts of “thick” and “sparse”. Juxtaposing with all the archive material, a single folklore collection can be interpreted as “thicker” because it provides a more unified temporal and interpretive framework (Pöysä 2000: 578–590). Estonian child-lore collections, gathered by Anderson and his contributors- followers can be regarded as a “thick” corpus for various reasons. Firstly, in a

5 The folklore collection with the help of pupils was carried out by Estonian Folklore Archives several times, collecting different genres (local legends, games, etc.). The collecting method was successfully practiced also in other European countries (see e.g. Ó Giolláin 2000: 128–136; Vīksna 2017: 84–87). 6 The parishes used to denote the territorial origins in Estonian studies are historical territorial administrative units that were originally shaped by tribal relations. Establishment of church parishes started in the 13th century. The cultural differences between tribes deepened down through the centuries, that is why parishional origin determined the characteristics of both material and immaterial peasant culture even in the 19th century. There were 112 parishes in Estonia in the late 19th century. L. Saarlo. THE DOG GOES TO TEND THE HERD… 257 literal sense since the collection rake was very thin – the child-lore tradition was documented exhaustively. Anderson’s questionnaires were answered by whole grades and schools all over Estonia, depending on school masters’ and teachers’ interests and sense of duty. In short, in Anderson’s collection, there are many recordings of child-lore from the particular regions. Secondly, collected child-lore was provided with the contextual data. Because authenticity has been one of the central principles of the Estonian folklore collection and research (see Valk 2005), the provenience of the recorded folklore texts had to be proved by noting down performers name, place of residence (and of origin), and age. In these questionnaires, pupils were instructed to follow the authenticity principles – not to write down from each other or from books – and add the contextual data about the origins of the documented songs. In spite of everything, the child-lore collections were disparaged and marginalised by Estonian folklorists till now. The first reason is, of course, the implied triviality of children’s repertoire. According to erstwhile folklorist tradition, children were an insignificant minority. Folklorists were more interested in “serious” topics and genres – archaic genres of peasants’ oral tradition, as mentioned above. Child- lore, contemporary in its essence, was worth of interest only if containing traits of mythical heritage. The marginality of the research area is certainly reflected in the lack of studies on child-lore until the 1990s.7 The second reason is the supposed unauthenticity – the general assumption yet again that pupils fabulated and scribed from each other – which might be the case, but very likely pupils of the same schools shared the tradition. Also, the literary impact on the origin of the collected texts is obvious (Tedre 1965: 653). Researchers and publishers of the children’s songs had to confront the uncounted numbers of texts (variants) with minimal differences between them. The solutions to this problem have been very different: either ignoring certain types of songs or making an exception to the principles of publication (Saukas 2007: 56; Saarlo 2012: 840–841; Salve, Saarlo, Oras 2019: 6). It is noteworthy that the paremiologists have discussed the authenticity of the corpus and have reached quite different positions. Arvo Krikmann refers to a large number of written sources for proverbs (Krikmann 1999). Rein Saukas, however, appreciates the authenticity of riddles in the corpus (Saukas 2007: 53–54). But the third, and the biggest problem with child-lore collection campaigns is that they turn upside down the Zipf’s law which, as Krikmann puts it, proposes that in natural (or “normal”) text corpora, most types are represented only by one

7 As it is difficult to refer to the lack of research, some overview can be obtained from the bibliogra- phies of the Estonian folklore (see Ribenis 1997: 519–522, 1999: 131, 146, 2002: 343–346, 503). 258 TAUTOSAKOS DARBAI 59

or two text variants, and only few “super types” are represented by many variants (see Zipf 1935; Krikmann 1997). To illustrate the problem, we can use as an example Laiuse runo-song corpus, “Vana kannel XIII” (Salve, Saarlo & Oras 2019). In this academic volume are published all runo-songs, incl. older types of children’s songs and spells from Laiuse parish, documented from 1844 to the 1990s. There are a total of 1709 text variants of 628 song-types. Children’s songs constitute 30 per cent of the published corpus – 510 text variants of 26 song types in total. There are 1199 variants of 602 types of “non-children-songs”, from which 62 per cent (374) are represented only by one variant, 19 per cent (117) by 2 variants, 9 per cent (55) by 3 variants, etc., and only 6 song-types (40 texts in total) are represented by 10 or more variants. It means that they represent the Zipf’s distribution perfectly.

Distribution of runo-songs in “Vana Kannel XIII. Laiuse regilaulud”. The number of variants is presented on y-axis, and the number of song-types on x-axis.

In the children’s songs, on the contrary, only 14 (a half) of the song-types are represented by less than 10 variants (total of 15 texts), 12 types are “super- types”. The “super-types” of the Laiuse runo-song corpus are represented only in children’s repertoire and are documented mostly in the 20th century collections. E.g. a child’s amusement song named “The dog goes to tend the herd” is represented by 65 variants. L. Saarlo. THE DOG GOES TO TEND THE HERD… 259

Distribution of children’s songs in “Vana Kannel XIII. Laiuse regilaulud”. The number of variants is presented on y-axis, and the number of song-types on x-axis.

It is obvious that peculiarities of the formation of the children’s songs corpus change the general picture of the runo-song corpus of Laiuse parish, because the collection methods were very different (cf. Saarlo 2018a: 88–89). And this is the most important reason why the child-lore collections are marginalised and pejorated by folklorists – there are so many items, the masses of written variants are just not very appetizing and probably unmanageable, and the abundance of “trivial” rhymes eclipses the symbolical glory of ancient runo-song poetry.

PRIIDU TAMMEPUU – A DILIGENT TEACHER AND A FOLKLORE ENTHUSIAST

Priidu Tammepuu (Friedrich Eichenbaum) was born in Russia in a family of Estonian emigrants8; his father was from Southern Estonia, from Rõngu parish. Tammepuu received primary education in the town of Toropets, Pihkva governorate and continued studies in dairying in Yaroslavl. After the Russian Revolution, establishment of the Soviet Union and the independent Republic of Estonia, Tammepuu opted to Estonia in 1920, and moved to the Tartu County, Laius parish, commune of Sadala, where he started to teach at the Laius-Tähkvere (Sadala) Elementary School. Friedrich Eichenbaum changed his

8 On Estonian emigration to Russia, see e.g. Arens 1964–1971; Raun 1986. 260 TAUTOSAKOS DARBAI 59

Priidu Tammepuu (ELM, ERA, Foto 123)

name to Priidu Tammepuu in 19389. He worked as a teacher of natural sciences in Sadala until 1957. Tammepuu was engaged in Anderson’s campaign and organized the collection of child-lore in Sadala. He sent 1231 different kinds of songs in addition to several dozen narratives, proverbs and riddles to the Anderson’s collection in 1923 and 192410. Tammepuu continued to collect folklore with the help of his pupils using Anderson’s questionnaire and documented children’s repertoire until the 1950s. In addition to the songs, he also collected puzzles, oneiromancy, local place-lore, games, fairy tales, etc., using the questionnaires of EFA, Estonian National Museum and other memory institutions. One of his pupils, later a linguist Valdek Pall is recalling in his memoires that it was obligatory to write down folklore for them (Pall 2002: 98). Besides his pupils, Tammepuu also documented oral tradition of adults. He had long-time co-operation with some local story-tellers and singers – like Anna Räpp and Peeter Käär, whom he interviewed several times, trying to document their repertoire “exhaustively”. He felt responsibility to record vanishing local traditions and knowledge, using in his correspondence the same rhetoric as did Hurt and other

9 In the 1930s, there was a campaign of „estonianization“ of (sur)names. Although it was propagated to change foreign (German or Russian) names to Estonian, it was more or less voluntary (Must 2001). Interestingly enough, Tammepuu has kept in his correspondence letters from the governor of Tartu County, who urged him to change the former name (ELM, EFAM, Tammepuu, M 1: 10). 10 ELM, A 4018/104, A 4710/31. L. Saarlo. THE DOG GOES TO TEND THE HERD… 261 folklore collectors. In 1936–1938, there was an action of recording of folk music carried out by Estonian Broadcast, EFA and the Estonian Music Museum. Tammepuu took steps to get Käär’s stories to be audio-recorded, but it didn’t happen11. Tammepuu was an enthusiastic local historian, he corresponded with archaeologists, ethnographers, dialectologists; he was an active (voluntary) contributor for several memory institutions till the end of his life. It is interesting to discuss his motivation for such activities in the context of autobiographical and vernacular literacy studies. There is a noteworthy number of variants of Tammepuu’s autobiographies in his manuscript collection, written during different periods, but mostly in the 1940s12. During the Soviet occupation, esp. first decades, acquiring the skills in autobiographical writing (esp. autobiographical questionary) was of vital importance. People had to master presenting the suitable details of their lives and hide the improper and dangerous ones. Repatriation from Soviet Russia to the independent Estonia was definitely an unsuitable detail for Soviet authorities, Tammepuu had to provide the appropriate context to the fact of repatriation – suitable social background, poverty, endeavour to receive higher education, etc. On the other hand, the biographies of performers as well as collectors were documented since Hurt’s collection campaigns. Hurt had a plan to compile a publication of contributors’ biographies (Kikas 2017: 584). To write – to have – an autobiography became a constitutional part of any literary person’s image. Tammepuu describes in his autobiographies his childhood in (ideologically approved) rural environment. He decidedly targets the writings to a memory institution when he characterizes his father’s narration and his mother’s singing skills. Anyhow, through these details emerges his interest and commitment to the documentation of cultural history and folk traditions13. It takes us back to the question about his motivation. His living and working place in Estonia – Sadala – was not his ancestral home, i.e. his interest in local traditions cannot be interpreted as an attempt to get “back to the roots”. We must not forget his somehow “outsider’s” position, repatriation intensified his aim to be appreciated as a “native”, to enter the “imagined community” of Estonians (cf. Anderson 2006) – and to associate himself more with the community of Sadala. Also, the respect gained in the community through communication to the “higher classes” of society – intellectuals and scholarly institutions – must not be ignored.

11 Correspondence between Tammepuu and EFA officials about Peeter Käär and audio-recording gives an interesting glance on the erstwhile ideas about peoples’ qualities as story-tellers. (ELM, EFAM, Tammepuu, M 1: 3, 12/3; 14/5; 20/1). 12 ELM, RKM, Tammepuu 23. 13 In his private manuscript archives, there are some handwritten books with spells and folk medicine instructions, also some manuscript song books, dated 19th century, and acquired probably from Estonian colonies in Russia. 262 TAUTOSAKOS DARBAI 59

His intrinsic attentiveness to the past and the endeavour to receive higher education formed him as a “literate man”, who was engaged in “literary mission”. It is comparable to the motivations of Hurt’s correspondents and folklore collectors of later periods – the wish to belong to a community, the realization of literary ambitions, the possibility to act and express to the public, also public approval were all very strong motivating forces (Kikas 2014: 316–321; cf. Oras 2010: 25–29).

THE CONFLICTS BETWEEN A COLLECTOR AND ARCHIVAL INSTITUTIONS

The co-operation of the EFA and Tammepuu started with great promise. In the 1930s, Tammepuu participated in a number of collection-campaigns of the EFA, sending his pupils’ writings on different genres, incl. 600 songs. The archives awarded him with several minor prizes and in 1939 he got the top prize for his collection activities (Anderson & Loorits 1939). The correspondence from 1940 reveals that relations between Tammepuu and the archives had worsened14. He missed out on getting a collection prize because he had sent transcriptions of the original texts to the archives, not originals themselves. Also, other memory institutions warned him not to send transcriptions instead of the originals, and not to send the same materials to different institutions15. Tammepuu interrupted the cooperation with the EFA – although carried on his contributionary work for the Ethnographic Museum, Mother Tongue Society, etc. He participated in a number of collection campaigns by copying previously collected materials. For example, for the competition for collecting stories about birds organised by the Nature Conservation Society in 1962, he sent songs and stories collected by his pupils in the 1930s. The Society assigned these materials to the EFA. These were the same songs and stories he had already sent to the archives, copied by him before. The original manuscripts stayed in his personal archives. Despite several proposals, he did not relinquish his personal archives. In 1972, after the congratulatory writing by the EFA on the jubilee of Tammepuu where his “personal archival problem” was mentioned (Olgu õnne…: 67), he handed over his collections – about 60 cases of manuscripts – to the Estonian Literary Museum. What was the reason for Tammepuu to abandon the idea to send the originals to the archives and start creating his own? The first reason was the fact that he was the correspondent of several archives and he got different instructions about the final preparation of the writings. Historical and dialectical archives needed exemplary

14 Letters from Richard Viidalepp (ELM, EFAM, Tammepuu, M 1: 3, 32; 35) 15 Letters from the Estonian Cultural History Archives (ELM, EFAM, Tammepuu, M 1: 2) and the Academic Mother Tongue Society (ELM, EFAM, Tammepuu, M 1: 1). L. Saarlo. THE DOG GOES TO TEND THE HERD… 263 transcriptions, not original worksheets. Also, the EFA instructed pupils how to correctly prepare the writings. Tammepuu had decided that pupils’ handwriting was not correct enough and rewrote the materials16. The second reason was the complicated relationship with the EFA. In 1938 he maintained correspondence with several archival officials (Oskar Loorits, Richard Viidalepp and Rudolf Põldmäe) on the unconventional repertoire of Peeter Käär and on the need to audio-record his narrations17. He got contradictory answers and suggestions from the folklorists, and the matter of audio-recording of the storyteller was met with indifference. The power-position held by EFA must have irritated Tammepuu enough for him to give up on continuing the contributory work.

CHILD-LORE COLLECTION OF PRIIDU TAMMEPUU

The manuscript collection of Tammepuu consists of very different kinds of texts: correspondence with several institutions (museums, archives, publishing houses, etc.) and private persons, autobiographies, folklore texts recorded by himself, by his pupils or his co-workers, and copied texts from his own or other collections. Folklore texts are recorded from Sadala, Laiuse parish, and several places all over Estonia, but also from his native region in Russia. Most problematic segment in Tammepuu’s collection is seven files (approx. 3,500 pages) of child-lore18. There is no systematic arrangement of these manuscripts: neither personal, generic nor chronological sequence – answers to the questionnaires about legends and oneiromancy are mixed with writings of songs and riddles. Original manuscripts are mixed with copies. Unfortunately, many of the contributions have lost their data. If we take into account that besides his private collections, there are around 2,400 written pages which had already been archived in the EFA, sent by Tammepuu, both written by his pupils or copied by him from his private collections, we comprehend that the tasks of archivists, researchers and publishers of Tammepuu’s archives are extremely difficult, demanding patience, attention, literary criticism and – most of all – time. The biggest problem with Tammepuu’s child-lore collection is the endless copies: he had repeatedly re-rewritten his collections and sent the copies to several institutions. Some of the manuscripts have been rewritten by his pupils. Furthermore, he did not rewrite all his original manuscripts – for various reasons. Unfortunately, in the course of the rewritings, mistakes had been made and the features of spoken

16 His letter to the EFA on 8.7.1939 (ELM, ERA II 253, 439/40). 17 ELM, EFAM, Tammepuu, M 1: 3, 8/9; 10/11; 12/3; 14/5; 20/1. 18 ELM, RKM, Tammepuu 16–22. 264 TAUTOSAKOS DARBAI 59

language and dialect had been lost, also contextual data was added unsystematically. This reminds us why the archives actually value the “original” manuscripts. 254 songs from Tammepuu’s collections were included into the volume “Vana Kannel XIII”, one-third of them have one or even more doublets in the EFA.

PERSPECTIVES AND POSSIBILITIES OF USE… AND CONTEXTUALIZATION?

It is obvious that organizing and editing such kinds of archival materials is not very inspiring, and seems neither very perspective nor effective. During the compiling of the last volumes of the “Vana Kannel” series, it became clear that academically edited exhaustive publications are not the right output for such kind of texts. The question is – familiar to any archivist or editor of archived texts – should we expand our resources by arranging such kind of collections or should we put them aside? Without any doubt, we should not reject such collections just because of their massiveness or ampleness. Publication of child-lore databases would have great potential. Actually, application of the methods of digital and interdisciplinary humanities can lead us to fascinating and valuable results. There is a very good example of investigation by Arvo Krikmann and Mari Sarv on something as “trivial” as a ladybird spell which gives very interesting results when done on “big data”, i.e. by analysing the whole corpus of Estonian ladybird spells, mostly recorded by pupils (Krikmann & Sarv 2008). Besides other things, authors mention that pupils’ collections should be re-evaluated on the aspects of (local) variation, authenticity, literary influences, etc. Leaving aside digital humanities, I would like to draw attention to three problems of pupils’ collections dealing with which can contextualize and re-evaluate the corpus. The first one is the “thickness” of the corpus – child-lore collections in their thickness can give some expressive additions to the history of local settlements. Because of the instructions, almost all pupils’ contributions have notes about the collector, performer, and their place of residence. We can place children’s residences on contemporary maps with the precision of farms – and have a very interesting overview of children’s places of residence and possible local communication networks. Of course, the historical continuity of landowners and habitants, and onomastica has changed in the course of the 20th century. But we should not forget that pupils, born in the 1920s and 1930s, are the generation who are (great-) grandparents of contemporary adults, by whom they are remembered. For that reason, opening such kind of corpuses to the public would be of great interest for regional history and genealogical studies. In the context of the issue of the depopulation of the rural areas because of urbanisation and globalisation, it will also create ways to empower local identity. L. Saarlo. THE DOG GOES TO TEND THE HERD… 265

The second one is the relationship of texts written by classmates and siblings – the pupils-collectors are often blamed for scribing off of each other. But at the same time, the collection gives opportunity to study variation within a very close community – classroom or family. Did they scribe off of each other – probably yes. But we do not know who sat next to whom at school. It is also very likely that children in the same grade knew the same songs. It is possible to compare writings of siblings, for example. Were the songs of one family’s children the same or rather not? Here are two contrary examples, first one from Pedasi village, from Edgar and Herbert Davel. Exploring the song “The cat in the well”, we can see that two variants are almost verbatim, except one line is missing from the other one.

“The cat in the well”. Variants by Edgar Davel (1932) and Herbert Davel (1938), both lived in Sadala Commune, Pedasi village, Tanel farm (ELM, RKM, Tammepuu 19, 212 and ELM, RKM, Tammepuu 21, 465 (22)). 266 TAUTOSAKOS DARBAI 59

Daughter of the house is too tall, She is too tall and lazy by nature. She didn’t go for water to the well. She sent the cat for water. [The cat did not go for water. She was after the cat.] The cat went into the well, hopping, Its tail after it, flashing. People went to the village to get the rope. The liber-ropes were of poor kind, Tar-rope helped the cat out the well.

Another example is the child’s amusement song “The dog goes to tend the herd” from Nukelise village, by Anastasia and Paula Teppan (1932).The song is relatively short, there’s little room for variation. But still, descriptive words for different styles of movements can vary significantly, even in one family.

‘The dog goes out to herd the cattle, plodding. / It comes back home, wiggling.’

“The Dog Goes Out to Tend the Herd”. Variants by Paula and Anastasia Teppan, both lived in Sadala commune, Nukelise village (ELM, RKM, Tammepuu 18, 550 (12) and ELM, RKM, Tammepuu 19, 287).

There is also another example from a school song-book (Tamman 1918), there were printed also some folk songs. This book was probably used also in the schools of Laiuse parish. Three-voiced canon had lyrics by F. R. Kamsen, the author of many folksy children’s songs, printed in popular song-books. Lines in the brackets L. Saarlo. THE DOG GOES TO TEND THE HERD… 267 about the tail and the head of the dog have found their way to the variants written by children. Although not in the Teppan sisters’ variants.

‘The dog goes out To herd the cattle, Plodding~hobbling. [His tail was droopy, His head was hanging.] It comes back home, Pit-a-pat, Jiggling and wiggling!’

“The Dog Goes Out to Tend the Herd”. Three-voiced canon. Lyrics “from people’s mouth” by F. R. Kamsen (Tamman 1918: 131).

The last example leads us to the third possibility to contextualize pupils’ child- lore collections – to review and to re-evaluate relations of child-lore texts to literary texts. I have to return to the questionnaire of Walter Anderson, where there were listed children’s songs and was asked: “if you know some of them, write them down”. We cannot actually expect children to have any expertise in folklore, they 268 TAUTOSAKOS DARBAI 59

wrote down all kinds of songs, even if they learned them from textbooks. This song is one of the most popular songs in Anderson’s collections. According to bibliographical databases, it is also a frequently printed song in popular children’s songbooks and school song-books up to now. It is clear that Kamsen’s lyrics are based on a folk song – the song is documented by Hurt’s contributors in the 1880s. The research question would be, how the numerous printed variants influenced the variants written down by children. It is clear that children did write down songs learned from their textbooks, either intentionally or out of ignorance. Leaving aside some villains who wrote down letter-by-letter, we must also consider folklorization and even re-folklorization of literary texts (e.g. Anttonen, af Forselles & Salmi-Niklander 2018). Here we can raise several annoying but-if-questions about authenticity and traditionality: can we talk about traditional use of texts if children recite during their games rhymes learned at school? But if they vary the texts? But if their parents had learned rhymes from books and sung them to their children and children use them “traditionally”, i.e. orally transmitted from parents to children? Although authenticity and literary relations were very important terms in Estonian folkloristics (Valk 2005), becoming reasons for marginalisation and dismissing whole collections of particular genres, there was relatively little actual research on those topics.19 In any case, studies on relations of pupils’ writings and their possible literary sources can give fascinating outcomes on interrelations of oral and literary cultures, the spread and variation of literary texts in oral tradition, folklorization of authorial texts, etc. If someone can work through endless copies and variants, misspellings and immature handwriting, of course.

IN CONCLUSION

The countrywide collections of child-lore by Walter Anderson and his followers have been very fruitful because of the engagement of enthusiastic teachers, pupils and students. Regardless of positive outcome, the endeavour had conflicting effects. Firstly, the used collection strategy and instruction methods assured the huge mass of answers of similar kind. Erstwhile methodologically necessary quantity of recordings was counterproductive for qualitative research of texts, let alone scholarly arranging, editing or publication of them.

19 Most systematic research on authenticity problems of folklore texts was carried on by paroemiologists during compilation of the academic editions of proverbs and riddles (see e.g. Krikmann 1999, Saukas 2007). Also, Ingrid Rüütel has studied the literary sources of folk-songs of newer style (Rüütel 2012). There is no scrupulous study on literary sources of runo-songs or children’s songs. L. Saarlo. THE DOG GOES TO TEND THE HERD… 269

Secondly, fruitful campaigns haven’t removed the negative prejudices against child-lore because of the doubtful authenticity and questionable methods of materials collected. The pupils-collectors have been suspected and blamed for scribing off of each other, from books, fabulating, etc. Although the tasks of archivists, researchers and publishers of child-lore collections are complicated and time-consuming, we should not ignore and set aside the collections. Publication of child-lore databases has great potential. Application of the methods of digital and interdisciplinary humanities opens up new perspectives and promises exciting and unprecedented outcomes that can reveal the spread and essence of folkloric interaction in general. Child-lore collections in their thickness can give some expressive additions to the history of local settlements. Opening such kind of corpuses to the public would be of great interest for regional history and genealogical studies. It will also create ways to empower local identity. Studies on relations of pupils’ writings and literary texts can give very interesting results on interrelations of oral and literary cultures, the spread and variation of literary texts in oral tradition.

I am very grateful to my colleagues Kristi Salve for introducing me to runo-song corpus of Laiuse parish, and Olga Ivaškevitš for language support.

SOURCES

Manuscripts and photographs in the Estonian Literary Museum (ELM): ELM, A – Walter Anderson’s collection of children’s songs; ELM, RKM, Tammepuu – Priidu Tammepuu’s archives; ELM, EKLA, A – Photographs of the Archives of Cultural History of Estonia; ELM, ERA, Foto – Photographs of the Estonian Folklore Archives.

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Bėga šunelis bandos ganyti... Apie estų vaikų dainų kontekstualizavimą

LIINA SAARLO

Santrauka

Raktažodžiai: Estų folkloro archyvas, tautosakos rinkimo sąjūdis, vaikų dainos, tautosakos rinkėjas, literatūrinė įtaka žodinei tradicijai. Masinis, XIX a. pabaigoje visą šalį apėmęs tautosakos rinkimo sąjūdis Estijoje iki šiol laikomas labai svarbiu ir sėkmingu. Šio sąjūdžio vaisius – apie 200 tūkstančių rankraštinių puslapių – tapo estų kultūrinio identiteto ir tautinės nepriklausomybės pamatu, o jame dalyvavę tautosakos rinkėjai pelnė garbingų sąmonėjančios tautos atstovų vardą. Tačiau išsamūs ir gausūs vaikų dainų rinkiniai, maždaug puse šimtmečio vėliau sukaupti Walterio Andersono ir jo talkininkų, turėjo nevienareikšmį poveikį. Pirmiausia, didžiulę jų gausą lėmė aktyvus ir entuziastingas mokytojų, mokinių ir studentų įsitraukimas į šių dainų rinkimą. Įvadinių viešųjų ryšių kampanijų organizavimas, per žiniasklaidos prie- mones platinant dainų rinkimo instrukcijas ir iš anksto parengtas anketas, davė milžinišką kiekį beveik vienodų atsakymų. Didelis užrašymų skaičius, anksčiau laikytas metodologiškai būtinu, pasirodė besąs rimta kliūtis kokybinei tekstų analizei, nekalbant jau apie mokslinį jų klasifikavimą, rengimą ir leidybą. Antra, ši rezultatyvi kampanija nepašalino išankstinių neigiamų nuostatų vaikų dainų atžvilgiu, nes surinktos medžiagos autentiškumas ir jos užrašymo metodai kėlė daug abejonių. Dainas rinkę mokiniai buvo įtariami ir kaltinami tarpusavio nusirašinėjimu, tautosakos nurašymu iš knygų, prasimanymais ir pan. Tautosakos rinkimo vadovų talkininkai turėjo nevienodų priežasčių bendradarbiauti: juos motyvuoti galėjo noras priklausyti bendruomenei ir pelnyti visuotinę pagarbą, įgyvendinti savo kūrybines ambicijas, saviraiškos galimybė ir kt. Pasigilinus į XX a. rinkėjo Priidu Tam- mepuu (Friedricho Eichenbaumo) laiškus ir autobiografinius tekstus matyti, kad jį skatino didžiulis domėjimasis praeitimi, noras įgyti aukštąjį išsilavinimą ir tam tikras pareigos jausmas. Nors estų vaikų dainų rinkimas pasirodė kaip reta rezultatyvus, surinkta medžiaga folkloristų buvo nuvertinta ir iš esmės marginalizuota. Pirmoji priežastis – tam tikras šio žanro banalu- mas, antroji – ši tautosaka laikyta neautentiška, be to, matoma akivaizdi literatūrinė įtaka L. Saarlo. THE DOG GOES TO TEND THE HERD… 273 tokių užrašymų atsiradimui. Tačiau didžiausia vaikų dainų rinkimo problema yra ta, kad šios kampanijos rezultatai aukštyn kojomis verčia „įprastą“ (Zipfo) sampratą apie folklorinių tekstų pasiskirstymą. Antai vienas runų dainų pavyzdys iš Lajusės parapijos aiškiai rodo, kad daugumą dainų tipų dėsningai sudaro vos vienas ar du variantai, tuo tarpu vaikų dainų atveju, priešingai, esama daugybės dainų „supertipų“, kurie turi gausybę variantų, o tipų su vos keliais variantais randama labai nedaug. Vis dėlto, nors archyvarų, tyrėjų ir leidėjų, dirbančių su vaikų dainomis, laukia daugybė rimtų sunkumų, mes neturėtume visiškai atmesti šių rinkinių. Labai daug galimybių teikia vaikų dainų duomenų bazių kūrimas ir viešinimas. (Beje, skaitmeninių ir tarpdisciplininių metodų taikymas čia duoda labai įdomių ir vertingų rezultatų.) Vaikų dainų rinkiniai vien dėl savo gausumo gali reikšmingai papildyti atskirų vietovių apgyvendinimo istoriją, o tokio pobūdžio klodų atvėrimas visuomenei būtų labai naudingas kraštotyros ir genealogijos tyrimams. Visa tai savo ruožtu sustiprintų vietos bendruomenių tapatumą. O santykio tarp mokinių užrašymų ir literatūrinių tekstų tyrimai gali suteikti vertingų žinių apie žodinės ir rašytinės kultūros tarpusavio sąveikas, literatūrinių tekstų paplitimą ir variacijas žodinėje tradicijoje.

The research has been supported by the Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies (CEES, European Regional Development Fund) and is related to research projects IUT 22-4 and EKM 8-2/20/2 (Estonian Ministry of Education and Research, Estonian Research Council).

Gauta 2020-04-02